


Need You to Need Me

by Margaery



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Dominance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-16 23:32:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1365796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margaery/pseuds/Margaery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dominic knows what Ernests needs tonight.</p><p>(Set after Dominic's loss to Tommy Robredo and Ernests' loss to Julien Benneteau at the Miami Masters.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Need You to Need Me

“Where’s Gunter?” is all Ernests asks, when he lets himself into Dominic’s hotel room that night.

Dominic’s been idly watching some shitty TV show, letting his mind drift, trying not to think about how close he was to having a chance today. 6-4 7-6(8) is just about as close as you can get without taking a set; a few shots here or there, and they could have played a third set, and who knows what might have happened? 

Instead, he’s stuck in his hotel room waiting for his best friend, whose match was even closer and went even worse than his did. They’ll be a pair tonight and no mistake.

“I told him you were probably going to get us really drunk,” Dominic says, watching the tension lines in the corner of Ernests’ mouth.

Ernests’ mouth twists, hard. “And what did he say?” he asks, looking away, his fingers tightening on the back on the chair.

“Frankly,” Dominic says, raising an eyebrow, “I don’t think he wants to see you right now.”

Ernests shrugs, as if he doesn’t care. He acts like he doesn’t care about a lot of things.

If they’d both won their matches, they would have played each other in the third round. They’ve never played each other in a main-level ATP match – once in a quallies match a year or two ago, and countless times on practice courts, but never on the tour proper. This would’ve been a first, one of them through to the fourth round to face Djokovic. 

“We’re not getting drunk,” Dominic says, standing up, taking a step towards Ernests.

“No?” Ernests asks, low. He sticks his hands in his pockets, juts his chin out.

Dominic reaches out to put his fingers around one of Ernests’ wrists, just tightly enough to make Ernests’ lips press together. “Come to bed.”

It’s not a question, and Ernests obeys.

~

Dominic imagines what it would be like to face Ernests across the net. Not in practice, with nobody watching except Ernests’ Latvian buddies (unless they’re practicing at a tournament, which always adds a few women who stare unnervingly at them and snap a million pictures when Ernests grins and takes his shirt off). Not in the first round of quallies at a 250, with a few sleepy people in the stands, and one guy who Dominic swears followed them around the entire tournament hoping Ernests would get mad and smash a racquet and then give it to him.

No, what he imagines is facing Ernests across the net in the fourth round of a Masters 1000, with a Grandstand full of people holding their breath, and those laughing eyes narrowing as they stare him down. They’d play not practice sets, with the loser buying the winner dinner or providing an after-dinner blowjob (the latter tactfully left out of conversation while Gunter’s around), but real sets, with real money and opportunities and ranking points. They’d put their tennis on the line, instead of cheerfully trash-talking each other to kingdom come, and one of them would emerge the victor.

Dominic figures something got wired slightly wrong in his brain along the line, so that thinking about all that ends up turning him on. It’s tennis that does it, the exhilaration and adrenaline, or perhaps the fight. He wouldn’t be the first guy to get a boner from victory, or from imposing his will on the court.

But then Dominic looks down at Ernests, stretched out beneath him, and thinks it might be something else as well.

“Get on with it,” Ernests says, his voice strained, his mouth curved petulantly.

Dominic tightens his grip around Ernests’ wrists, and leans down next to his ear. “I think you forgot,” he murmurs, keeping his voice dangerous and flat, “that you’re not calling the shots right now.”

Ernests bucks his hips up, because of course he does. Even on nights like this, when he needs to be taken care of, to be held close and hard, to have all the decisions taken away and all the responsibility relinquished, he can’t just relax into it. He has to be Ernests, all pokey bits and complicated lines, the Ernests who makes Dominic laugh and roll his eyes in equal measures. Nothing’s ever simple with Ernests, not really.

“Ernests,” Dominic says, still in his ear, and bites down on the lobe, soothing the bite with his tongue when Ernests makes a little needy sound.

He doesn’t buck his hips up again, though, and after a moment he turns his head. Dominic pulls back to look down at him, the long warm stretch of his skin sweaty against Dominic’s own. It’s humid in Miami, humid on the court and humid here in the bedroom. 

Ernests wets his lips with his tongue, and Dominic follows the urge to lean in and chase the words from his mouth with a kiss. It’s not a gentle one, and Ernests kisses back just as hard, flexing his hands in Dominic’s grasp. He could flip them if he wanted, press Dominic down into the soft sheets and kiss his way down his body, and some nights Dominic would be all for that. He has memories carefully stashed away of Ernests’ sinful mouth around his cock, of Ernests’ concentrating expression as he focused so hard on getting this fingering thing exactly right, of Ernests’ hilarious orgasm face that would be even more hilarious if Dominic wasn’t usually already most of the way to coming himself and thus not the most objective critic. (Somehow, in the heat of the moment, it’s even hot. Dominic doesn’t know how, but it is. Hilarious, but hot. Another inexplicable contradiction about Ernests.)

Tonight, though, Ernests wants something different, and Dominic is there for him.

When the kiss breaks, Ernests meets his eyes, the fierce bravado of defeat from earlier having faded to the background. Dominic can see the wounded pride more clearly now. There was no shame in Dominic losing to Robredo – he’s old and wily, and beat Federer not many months ago. An opportunity wasted, but not an unexpected loss. But Ernests would have expected to beat Benneteau, would have thought himself the superior player, would have counted on getting through – and not just in the way that Ernests pretty much always thinks he’s the better player, because he knows he has talent and doesn’t pull a Rafa Nadal and claim everyone is a tough opponent. No, Ernests would have gone out there today confident in a win, and come back licking his wounds.

“Dom,” Ernests says, deliberately – and then tips his head back into the pillows, offering Dominic his throat.

Dominic takes the gesture the way it’s meant. He leans in to mouth at Ernests’ throat, sucking a light hickey into the unprotected skin, feeling Ernests shudder against him.

Then he lets go of Ernests’ wrists, and starts to slide down Ernests’ body.

He’s not entirely sure what he has planned tonight. Not yet. They’re both out of the tournament now, and they don’t have to be careful. Perhaps he’ll finger Ernests until he can’t stand it any longer, whole body vibrating with the need to come. Perhaps he’ll suck him off and then fuck him until he’s able to get it up again, pushing him into a second orgasm before he’s really ready, watching the way his jaw clenches and then lets go. Perhaps he’ll sink down on Ernests’ cock himself, fucking himself slow and steady, putting on a show but never setting a fast enough rhythm for Ernests to actually get off, taking his sweet time and watching Ernests’ face go hungry and open and free.

He kneels between Ernests’ legs and looks up to where Ernests’ head is still tipped back into the pillows. His hands are where Dominic left them, obedient and still, and Dominic knows he doesn’t need to command; Ernests will leave them there until he’s told he can move them.

“You’re doing so well,” he says, softly, against Ernests’ inner thigh, and feels the quiver of Ernests’ muscles under his lips. 

In the daytime, with the net between them and the hot sun of Miami beating down, Ernests would laugh and probably add a little extra oomph to his forehands, or throw in some body serves, because obviously Ernests does well, Ernests always does well, and Dominic has to pay his dues on the tour before he’s really allowed to judge Ernests’ performance anyways. These are the rules.

Here in the nighttime, Ernests just breathes, the sound loud in the quiet.

Dominic ducks his head back down to his work, his fingers resting warm and secure on Ernests’ thigh.

~

“So,” Ernests says over breakfast the next morning. “Ready for the clay?”

Dominic swats his hand away from the last piece of bacon and spears it with his own fork. Over at the tournament, tennis players are preparing for their matches, still in the draw, still dreaming of crosscourt backhands and perfect dropshots and victory handshakes, still telling themselves that this is their week, this is their chance. _They_ don’t have to think about the trip back to Europe and the clay-court season yet, they’re still alive on hardcourt. Meanwhile _he’s_ fighting over bacon and wondering whether housekeeping’s going to charge them for using too many towels.

Ernests’ face is full of laughter, though, and it makes Dominic smile.

“Yeah,” he says, and stuffs the whole slice of bacon in his mouth before Ernests can start a fork war, which has happened before. “I think I am.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Ernests says, lofty and superior.

Dominic sighs and kicks him in the shin.


End file.
